Simple Virtualization

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ColinB

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Budget: $8,000-$10,000

I want to make a desktop that is capable of advanced virtualization. I want to be able to be able to provide Autodesk for about 4 thin clients AND to be able to access the entire system directly with one thin client (utilizing its full capabilities). I would like to be able to use this system to use Autodesk and play Arma 3 (ON MAX) I also want to run a multimonitor setup (3 monitors and a TV). I have been looking at the FirePro S10000 and think it might be a good GPU, however, I need recommendations as to what RAM, CPU, GPU, MOBO, MONITOR(S), etc.

Thanks for your thoughts
 
I think a few people here have tried to get a thin gaming setup going and failed.
 
I don't see a problem in running a regular desktop with Windows, Mac or Linux and put VMware Workstation/Fusion or VirtualBox on top of it? Just be sure you have enough RAM.

At least the VMware products are able to run spanning across multiple screens. I think there's also a nice solution by VMware to stream it. I hate when people ask "why", but - I'm now also curious. Is it because of the noise? I guess this could be solved a lot cheaper (thinking of the hardware + licences) with a few nice fans/water cooling...
 
DieTa said:
I don't see a problem in running a regular desktop with Windows, Mac or Linux and put VMware Workstation/Fusion or VirtualBox on top of it? Just be sure you have enough RAM.
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I would imagine that you would need direct GPU access for some of the Autodesk software for optimal performance for the thin-clients.

Anyway, I have some additional questions:
1) So you want to serve up five instances of Autodesk to five thin clients as well as the Autodesk to the person using the PC itself?
2) When are you planning on building this PC?
3) Does that $10000 include all the thin clients as well as the extra software licensese that you will more than likely buy?
4) So you somehow want to have four thin clients that have limited access to the PC and another thin client that that has a greater share of the resources?
5) Is this a serious setup?
6) How exactly did you come to the conclusion that everything in your OP is what you actually need?
7) Which Autodesk software are you talking about?

Honestly, drop the gaming requirement and/or build a seperate system for that. GPUs optimized for Autodesk and the like are not at all optimized for 3D gaming. Though for $10 grand, it might be simpler for you to build six separate PCs (five for Autodesk and one for gaming).
 
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I basically want to set up a single workstation with multiple displays. Then, when I'm not directly using the workstation, I want to be able to access all of it remotely, using a single thin client. When I'm doing neither of those, I want to be able to simply provide Autodesk capabilities to 4 thin clients at once (they would all be collaborating on a single project). And the budget doesn't include thin clients or software, just hardware, although recommendations would be nice.
 
Doesnt sound "simple" to me :D

Overall the biggest issue you are going to have is graphics rendering on the thin clients for CAD/gaming. There are some technologies that are maturing like MS RemoteFX and Citrix HDX, but they still are not as fluid for high end graphics remotely.
 
If its not yet possible to provide for 4 thin clients simultaneously, then I could settle on just one powerful thin client and local access to multiple monitors.
 
I plan to build this in early August. I want to utilize Autodesk Product Development Suite. And what is an "OP"? The FirePro S10000 seems like a powerful card with multiple displays and virtualization capabilities.
 
whatever you end up doing here its going to be classed as experimental and so isn't really good for anything outside of the lab
 
OP = Original Post. i.e your first post in this thread.

Now, you may have to drop your gaming requirement if accurate results in the Autodesk software is important as the FirePro and Quadro cards, no matter how powerful they are, do not have optimized drivers for 3D gaming. As such, the $3000+ FirePro S10000 may actually perform worse than a $90 consumer grade video card when it comes to video gaming. So are you willing to drop the video gaming requirement?

Assuming that you drop the video gaming requirement and want to stick with a professional GPU, you should be looking at Nvidia's Quadro cards as apparently the Quadro cards perform better in AutoCAD than AMD's FirePro cards. The Quadro 6000 or Quadro K5000 should do the trick.

Assuming that you want to keep the gaming requirement and don't mind the occasional inconsistent or inaccurate results, then go for the GTX 680 card since, again, Nvidia's AutoCad performance is higher than AMD's AutoCard performance.
 
The S10000 seems like the most bang for your buck, and it seems to me like its designed for virtualization. There is a lot of hype about the Quadro processors but they don't seem that much better (if at all) than the S10000. Are there any benchmarks of it? I can't seem to find any, just the specs from AMD.
 
Back to the original track (it seems I've deviated a bit) what hardware would you recommend (CPU, MOBO, RAM, etc)? (The software recommendations were great and I'm looking into them. )
 
The S10000 seems like a real asset to VDI so I was also curious if anybody has experience with it or is interested in the card at least.
 
And also, if there are no driver optimizations available for the S10000 when it comes to gaming, I might be able to drop in a GTX TITAN. If I did, would I be able to virtualize that with the S10000 (to a single client)? This idea is pretty out there, so don't shoot it down immediately without giving it some thought :)
 
Ever heard of the "EDIT" button? You didn't have to make four back to back posts like that. Makes you seem either desperate or needy. Neither of which would be helpful in getting you help.

ColinB said:
The S10000 seems like the most bang for your buck, and it seems to me like its designed for virtualization. There is a lot of hype about the Quadro processors but they don't seem that much better (if at all) than the S10000. Are there any benchmarks of it? I can't seem to find any, just the specs from AMD.
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Since the most resource heavy app in the Autodesk Product Development Suite appears to be AutoCAD, this article should help you:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/AutoDesk-AutoCAD-2013-GPU-Acceleration-164/

Note how the $750 Quadro 4000 2GB outperformed the $3400 Firepro W9000 in AutoCAD.
ColinB said:
Back to the original track (it seems I've deviated a bit) what hardware would you recommend (CPU, MOBO, RAM, etc)? (The software recommendations were great and I'm looking into them. )
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You never answered my question: Are you willing to drop the video gaming requirement?
ColinB said:
The S10000 seems like a real asset to VDI so I was also curious if anybody has experience with it or is interested in the card at least.
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Unfortunately it appears that you're the only person here on the forum that's actually wants to buy it. In fact, if you search the forums, this thread is one of only four threads that mentions the S10000

EDIT:
ColinB said:
And also, if there are no driver optimizations available for the S10000 when it comes to gaming, I might be able to drop in a GTX TITAN. If I did, would I be able to virtualize that with the S10000 (to a single client)? This idea is pretty out there, so don't shoot it down immediately without giving it some thought.
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Not necessarily as Nvidia's consumer GPU passthrough isn't as good as AMD from what I can tell here on the forums. With that said, you can't have a consumer grade AMD and a workstation grade AMD card in the same client/system/OS. The Quadro cards apparently work just fine in a virtual environment:
http://www.virtuallygeeky.com/2012/10/virtualized-3d-gaming-on-vmware-view.html
http://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/2012/10/25/vmware-view-3d-gaming-experience/
 
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for one part...."accessing the machine with one thin client" your best bet with that is to use a PCoIP host card in the actual machine and a PCoIP client at the desk, but that limits you to 2x 1920x1080 monitors and no local access.
(I have machines for TV video editing that are used from Mexico/Cali/N Carolina/Brazil and the actual machine is in CT)
 
ColinB said:
Back to the original track (it seems I've deviated a bit) what hardware would you recommend (CPU, MOBO, RAM, etc)? (The software recommendations were great and I'm looking into them. )
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CPU/MOBO/RAM is quite easy TBH. There are lots of options, but it is easy to tell where you get more the more you spend.

Finding the proper software should be your first task, then figure out the basic CPU/Mobo/RAM to meet the budget and performance needs.
 
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Not sure why you're getting all ga-ga with that card. The Sky 900 was designed for streaming games, not AutoCad. Nor does it look like you can leverage all of that power for one game and one system.

Grentz is right: Stop looking at hardware and start looking at software. That's gonna dictate what hardware you should be getting. With that said, if you actually read the article I linked to earlier, it does show that Quadro cards better than FirePro cards when it comes to AutoCAD, the key software that you're planning on using.
 
Okay, no one in their right mind would use a Radeon Sky for CAD. The idea was to use it WITH an S10000, not in place of. Also, I was looking at the W9000 comparisons and I found this. Kind of interesting.

http://m.tomshardware.com/reviews/firepro-w8000-w9000-benchmark,3265.html

Also, I was looking at RemoteFX with an R5000 and S10000.

I would really like to hear your thoughts on the Sky, as its not a consumer card and really shouldn't be available. (Yes, it isn't designed for a few high quality clients but many medium quality ones, but the technology exists, and its kind of available, so there are alternatives/workarounds/etc.)

Thanks for your thoughts :)

BTW this forum is awesome, great speedy responses :D And I'll try to use the edit post function more often Danny ;P Sometimes I'll post on my Droid 4 so they might be broken up every once in a while.
 
ColinB said:
Okay, no one in their right mind would use a Radeon Sky for CAD. The idea was to use it WITH an S10000, not in place of.
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Ok, but still not sure why you're going ga-ga over the Radeon Sky. You haven't mentioned anything about opening up your own cloud gaming service.
ColinB said:
Also, I was looking at the W9000 comparisons and I found this. Kind of interesting.

http://m.tomshardware.com/reviews/firepro-w8000-w9000-benchmark,3265.html
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I'm not giving Tom's Hardware any hits from my home. In other words, I don't trust Tom's Hardware as a reputable source.

ColinB said:
Also, I was looking at RemoteFX with an R5000 and S10000.
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Now please explain exactly how you plan on setting up RemoteFX with a R5000 and S10000 to output to four thin clients as once.

ColinB said:
I would really like to hear your thoughts on the Sky, as its not a consumer card and really shouldn't be available. (Yes, it isn't designed for a few high quality clients but many medium quality ones, but the technology exists, and its kind of available, so there are alternatives/workarounds/etc.).
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Again, I'm not sure why you're going ga-ga over the Radeon Sky. If you were actually opening up your own cloud gaming service, I'd understand. But since you're only doing AutoCAD and no gaming on any of the thin clients, I don't see a reason to keep talking about the Sky in this thread.
 
Okay, back on track. :)

Regarding the software, apparently the S10000 has...

"Support for leading virtualization technologies, including Microsoft® RemoteFX for powering multiple users running common office applications from one GPU, as well as direct GPU pass-through support for VMware® ESXi/ESX and Citrix® XenServer that enables users running more advanced workstation graphics applications (one GPU per user model)."

Is there any software that would allow me to switch from a GPU/USER configuration of 1:4 to a configuration of 1:1 and allow me to use the card locally?
 
ColinB said:
Okay, back on track. :)

Regarding the software, apparently the S10000 has...

"Support for leading virtualization technologies, including Microsoft® RemoteFX for powering multiple users running common office applications from one GPU, as well as direct GPU pass-through support for VMware® ESXi/ESX and Citrix® XenServer that enables users running more advanced workstation graphics applications (one GPU per user model)."

Is there any software that would allow me to switch from a GPU/USER configuration of 1:4 to a configuration of 1:1 and allow me to use the card locally?
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Clearing out the cobwebs :p

And I'm still looking for an answer.
 
ColinB said:
OH MY GOD

PREPARE TO BE SIDETRACKED

http://www.sabrepc.com/p-3989-amd-radeon-sky-900-server-graphics-card.aspx#

I want to buy one so bad.

Problem 1: WHAT SOFTWARE/DRIVERS?
Problem 2: CAN I RUN THIS IN TOGETHER WITH AN R5000 AND AN S10000?

An R5000, S10000, and SKY 900 would truly make a no compromise virtualization system.
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Yep, the SKY 900 looks like a good solution.

My 2c on virtualization and graphics:

I use a Xen hypervisor with PCI and VGA passthrough to have a Windows guest run about as good as if it was installed on bare metal. It uses its own Quadro 2000 card.

Nvidia is usually tricky or next to impossible to pass through to a guest OS, but the "multi-OS" termed Nvidia products seem to work. AMD is reportedly much better with VGA passthrough. You would need VGA passthrough for letting the guest OS handle the graphics card directly, with optimized drivers from the vendor. In other words, if you want 3D performance for gaming, this would be the way to get it on your workstation while running a VM.

I have no idea how well any of the suggested Firepro, Sky etc. cards work for 3D gaming. A lot will depend on the drivers, though. If you use VGA passthrough for one dedicated gaming card then the driver of the VM will handle that card. This means you could still use the Sky 900 or any other "virtualization" graphics card supporting PCoIP or similar for other VMs. I have no experience with closed source (Microsoft / VMware, etc.) software, on the open source side there is Xen and kvm that may support such a setup if (and only if) AMD provides Linux drivers for these cards. I would guess that they do, after all the big cloud providers use Linux.

With regard to Nvidia, you may find this of interest: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/hacking-nvidia-cards-into-their-professional-counterparts/.
 
I have done a lot of research since my last post, I will reply in depth in under 2 hours (i'm at school)
 
Okay :) For the software... it seems that VMWARE would be the best option for me. I need software that supports VDI and soft clients with GPU passthrough, and I heard that the free VMWARE has this, if not, it seems to be easier to pirate/torrent then Xenserver Enterprise, which I believe has GPU passthrough. I really want to be able to use this workstation locally with eyefinity (4 monitors) as well as being able to host multiple VMs (with the S10000). For gaming I have decided upon the official 7990 in SLI, and I want to be able to use these in eyefinity too (on the same screens as the S10000). It would be nice if there was a way to virtualize the 7990s, or even just use them remotely on a single thin client (Playing ARMA 3). any recommended solutions would be appreciated :)
 
ColinB said:
Okay :) For the software... it seems that VMWARE would be the best option for me. I need software that supports VDI and soft clients with GPU passthrough, and I heard that the free VMWARE has this, if not, it seems to be easier to pirate/torrent then Xenserver Enterprise, which I believe has GPU passthrough. I really want to be able to use this workstation locally with eyefinity (4 monitors) as well as being able to host multiple VMs (with the S10000). For gaming I have decided upon the official 7990 in SLI, and I want to be able to use these in eyefinity too (on the same screens as the S10000). It would be nice if there was a way to virtualize the 7990s, or even just use them remotely on a single thin client (Playing ARMA 3). any recommended solutions would be appreciated :)
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I am using the FREE Xen hypervisor, not the commercial Xenserver Enterprise.

VMware has lately also introduced GPU passthrough, so that should be an option.

You'll need VT-d (IOMMU) compatible hardware for passthrough to work. Sticking with AMD graphics for GPU passthrough should help, but better check that to see if there are user reports about the 7990. You don't want to spend a lot of money to find out it doesn't work.
 
ColinB said:
if not, it seems to be easier to pirate/torrent then Xenserver Enterprise, which I believe has GPU passthrough.
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FYI, discussion of piracy is not allowed here on the forums. In addition, it's utterly bloody stupid to do so considering that you're planning on spending $10K on this system and that you already have AutoCAD licenses as well.
ColinB said:
For gaming I have decided upon the official 7990 in SLI,
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It's Crossfire, not SLI. SLI is Nvidia tech.
 
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The discussion of piracy is not allowed.

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couple years late to the party here, but this is pretty simple to do. I did just find out that the S10000 isn't on vmwares HCL, so not sure if it got pulled or never made the cut. So you would want a S9000 if you were going to VSGA route. The main thing you are overlooking with vmware view is licensing costs (only sold in 10 packs that start at ~4k or so plus you need a vsphere license) and then having to setup a vmware view connection broker. That would be almost all you budget just on licensing (not going to fly on HARDforum) The only other way to utilize the pcoip protocol is to use pcoip host cards + video cards or better yet, the AMD R5000 remote workstation gpu+pcoip host all on one board (your vid card gets a lan port + 2x miniDP 1.2). These cards pass through to a VM just fine and you can setup your CAD workstations with 1 R5000 each. As for your triple monitor configuration, you could use an R5000 plus an MST hub or use all displayport 1.2 capable monitors in a daisy chain locally. This would also allow you to access your workstation remotely, but if you dont care about remote access, you could just get a R9 280X 6GB card for 1/4 the price (which i have verified also works with GPU passthrough). Here is a setup i had a year ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkvBJdndzIQ

Keep in mind, your workstation would still be a VM, but people rarely notice performance hits when they have a dedicated gpu at their disposal (my client was playing SWTOR @ 2560x1440 on high with that MSI card).


my shopping list would be this:
supermicro X8DTH-6F
2x Intel X5650
48GB ECC DDR3 (6x8gb)
5x AMD R5000
5x pcoip zero clients
3x Dell U2713H

not sure what sort of chassis you are looking for, but anything that supports E-ATX should work. Be sure you get tera2 zero clients that have DP 1.2 connectors, the tera1 only support 2 monitors while the tera2s allows for four
 
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